The congested State Road 417 exit at Boggy Creek Road will transform Friday afternoon with the opening of flyover bridges soaring toward Orlando International Airport.

A pair of flyover bridges and two lengthy ramps will skip over and skirt past a series of traffic lights at Boggy Creek Road south of the airport and a few miles west of Medical City.

Years in the making, the $71 million project anticipates a much busier airport in coming years.

"The growth is going to come," said Phil Brown, executive director of the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority. "You can already see the difference."

Of the 124,000 cars that enter or leave the airport each day, a fifth of that traffic funnels through the S.R. 417 interchange with Boggy Creek Road, which connects to the Jeff Fuqua Boulevard loop around the terminal and parking garages.

Further development of Medical City, north Osceola County, tourist attractions and a possible new airport terminal are expected to boost that percentage.

Brown said unlike other major airports, for example those in Dallas and Atlanta, where a significant portion of passengers arrive for connecting flights, most Orlando passengers arrive at or leave the airport in a car or bus.

The airport is bracketed by toll roads of Central Florida Expressway Authority, which leaves the airport experience pegged in part to upgrades by the road agency.

This month, the authority began demolition of its oldest and slowest toll-collection station, the Airport Plaza just north of the airport on BeachLine Expressway.

Motorists there were subject to backups and having to come up with more quarters for another toll plaza just a few miles west.

Toll revenue lost with removal of the airport plaza will be replaced with new tolls or increased tolls elsewhere in the vicinity.

But tolling will remain unchanged at $1.25 in cash for a car at the remade Boggy Creek interchange.

The flyover bridges and adjoining ramps are dedicated to the airport's south entrance. A driver on S.R. 417 who takes one of the new lanes won't be able to exit until Heintzelman Boulevard on airport property 2 miles north of the interchange.

The longest flyover bridge, at a half mile, is the lowest, reaching only 55 feet above the ground. But the shorter bridge, at a quarter mile, climbs to 90 feet.

Expressway authority spokesman Brian Hutchings said the interchange was delayed by a cost-savings switch from steel-beam bridges to a novel design of curving bridges built with reinforced concrete.

Hutchings said they are the first of their kind in Florida and the second in the nation.